Contacts

Swinging for the fences

June 4, 2013

The newspaper clipping from the Aug. 19, 2011 edition of the New York Times is already beginning to turn yellow. But the scribbled notes scrawled around its margins – names, phone numbers – are a vivid reminder of the day Ruth Hoffman’s life took a sharp turn.

Ruth Hoffman on the mound in Uganda

“Frustrating View of Game Day – Ugandans Watch from Home,” says the headline. In an accompanying photo, a group of Ugandan boys are watching the Little League World Series on television.

The boys were members of the Rev. John Foundation Little League team, and they had won the chance to play in that series, held every year in Pennsylvania. Their first opponent at the event was supposed to be Canada, which that year was being represented by Langley, B.C. But due to a lack of documentation, the Ugandan boys couldn’t get visas to travel to the U.S.

Hoffman, an ardent baseball fan who is now an Associate Finance Director in the Faculty of Medicine, was so moved by the story that she immediately began making phone calls – hence, the scribbles on the newspaper clipping. Those scribbles led to a remarkable encounter between the forlorn-looking boys in that photograph, and their counterparts in Langley.

“I had the vision that we had to do something,” she says.

Hoffman’s initiative led to what became the “Pearl of Africa Series,” a January 2012 match-up between the two teams in Uganda.

Hoffman, who accompanied the kids and parents, not only saw her dream realized. She also got the chance to travel with a couple of Major League Baseball players, and found herself being interviewed on television, and to bring things full circle, even being quoted in the Times.

For her work conceiving and organizing the Pearl of Africa Series, Hoffman has been given the Governor General’s Canadian Caring Award. Governor-General David Johnston personally presented the award to her, along with the Langley team, two coaches, two umpires and the team coordinator, at a June 3 ceremony in Langley.

“This remarkable story of caring and generosity epitomizes the best of our country,” the Governor General said at the ceremony. “Canadians today are pushing the boundaries of volunteerism, taking the tradition of caring that exists in this country into the 21st century. Volunteers today are finding ways to help that were never even dreamed of a generation ago… As Governor General, I consider it a privilege to recognize the members of this team and those who supported them.”

Hoffman originally envisioned a match-up that would stretch the horizons of the Langley boys and shine a spotlight on Uganda’s fairly recent infatuation with baseball. But after she partnered with Right To Play, an international organization based in Toronto that uses sport and play to help children beset by poverty, conflict and disease, it evolved into something grander.

A member of the Ugandan team exchanges tips with his counterpart from Langley.

Right To Play insisted on making it more than a trip by leaving behind “legacy projects”: sending all 12 of the team’s players to Ugandan private schools; building them a proper, dedicated playing field; and covering the bus fare for all Ugandan baseball and softball players so they can actually attend their games. (Until then, their playing time was mostly limited to practices; traveling to play teams from other towns was a luxury.)

“I bought into it,” Hoffman says, “because I always wanted it to be about opening up the eyes of these kids to life in Africa, and about how they can make a difference with just a little bit of help.”

All of this forced Hoffman to take a crash course in fund-raising, international logistics, and public relations. (The baseball part was second-nature to her — in addition to being a fan, her twin sons played together in the Senior League World Series, held every year in Maine.)

The trip received national coverage in Canada, including a 30-minute documentary by SportsNet, along with articles by the Times and ESPN.com. Hoffman wound up exceeding the $150,000 fund-raising goal to pay for the trip and the legacy projects, thanks to online donations and major gifts from Oklahoma oil entrepreneur Trent Ward and Philadelphia Phillies first-baseman Jimmy Rollins.

The Ugandan players, some of whom were on the verge of dropping out of school, were enrolled in private schools. The paperwork to build the field was finalized in May. And kids throughout Uganda are now traveling to games – not just practices.

Meanwhile, the government of baseball-obsessed Japan has taken notice, and in December announced a grant for construction of a baseball stadium and playing field near Kampala.

Hoffman made a return trip to Uganda in October, just before starting her job at UBC, to monitor progress of the legacy projects. While there, “Pearl of Africa Series 2” took shape – bringing four Ugandan coaches (two for baseball, two for softball) to B.C., so they can be trained in the finer points of the sport. The baseball coaches will be trained by the Vancouver Cannons, part of the B.C. Premier Baseball League, and the softball coaches will be mentored by the South Surrey-White Rock Minor Softball Association.

Hoffman, who describes her current job as “demystifying” finance for the physicians and administrators in the departments of Medicine, Surgery, Radiology, Emergency Medicine, Orthopaedics and Dermatology & Skin Science, continues to act as the Pearl of Africa Series coordinator. Pearl of Africa Series 2 is receiving support from Commonwealth Games Canada and the U.S.-based Roberto Clemente Foundation, and the Vancouver Canadians minor league baseball team will be promoting the project at Nat Bailey Stadium this summer.

“It’s a gift to have an opportunity to do something like this,” she says. “So many times, people have great ambitions, but they can’t pull it together because their vision is too big. This was something that was very simple and focused. And, of course, I love baseball.”